time when America had no other bond of union, than that of
common interest and affection. The whole country flew to the relief of
Boston, and, making her cause, their own, participated in her cares and
administered to her wants. The fate of war, since that day, has carried
the calamity in a ten-fold proportion to the southward; but in the mean
time the union has been strengthened by a legal compact of the states,
jointly and severally ratified, and that which before was choice, or the
duty of affection, is now likewise the duty of legal obligation.

The union of America is the foundation-stone of her independence;
the rock on which it is built; and is something so sacred in her
constitution, that we ought to watch every word we speak, and every
thought we think, that we injure it not, even by mistake. When a
multitude, extended, or rather scattered, over a continent in the manner
we were, mutually agree to form one common centre whereon the whole
shall move to accomplish a particular purpose, all parts must act
together and alike, or act not at all, and a stoppage in any one is a
stoppage of the whole, at least for a time.

Thus the several states have sent representatives to assemble together
in Congress, and they have empowered that body, which thus becomes their
centre, and are no other than themselves in representation, to conduct
and manage the war, while their constituents at home attend to the
domestic cares of the country, their internal legislation, their farms,
professions or employments, for it is only by reducing complicated
things to method and orderly connection that they can be understood
with advantage, or pursued with success. Congress, by virtue of this
delegation, estimates the expense, and apportions it out to the several
parts of the empire according to their several abilities; and here the
debate must end, because each state has already had its voice, and the
matter has undergone its whole portion of argument, and can no more be
altered by any particular state, than a law of any state, after it has
passed, can be altered by any individual. For with respect to those
things which immediately concern the union, and for which the union was
purposely established, and is intended to secure, each state is to the
United States what each individual is to the state he lives in. And
it is on this grand point, this movement upon one centre, that our
existence as a nation, our happiness as a people, and our saf